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ARTICLE BY JOY SHI

AUGUST 3 | IRVINE—“He’s an icon and a legend, and no one is denying his legacy. But he tanked.” These days, live reviews of Bob Dylan hardly write themselves like they used to. Published July 15, 2013, by The Detroit News, this is just one of many dismal responses to the AmericanaramA Festival of Music, Dylan’s vivaciously christened tour that trooped its way through 26 North American cities this summer. Over the past two months, while critics have sung the praises of co-headliners My Morning Jacket and Wilco, Dylan’s performance has amassed unforgiving descriptions such as “cringeworthy,” “tedious,” “borderline painful,” and “a parody of himself.”

Despite the negative criticism, Irvine’s Verizon Wireless Amphitheater had no problem filling its 16,000 seats to near capacity. From my vantage point on the GA lawn, Dylan’s multigenerational effect was apparent. There were fans over 40, who nodded in appreciation of My Morning Jacket’s festival-worthy opening set, as well as fans in their mid-20s and upwards.

The slugline on AmericanaramA’s official concert advertisement, “AmericanaramA Festival of Music with Bob Dylan and His Band, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, and More….!!” reads and looks like a poster for an old Western picture. The font and layout bear a similar resemblance to posters for another famous tour led by Dylan: the Rolling Thunder Revue.

Dylan’s “invite the whole gang” philosophy on the Rolling Thunder Revue concerts transferred over well to AmericanaramA. Just as the Revue shows featured such ’70s cultural icons as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Allen Ginsberg, T-Bone Burnett, and even boxer Muhammed Ali, Dylan has invited contemporary folk and country musicians to join him for AmericanaramA. In addition to My Morning Jacket and Wilco—fronted respectively by Jim James and Jeff Tweedy—Ryan Bingham and Phospherescent’s Matthew Houck also made appearances on the tour. In addition, a number of musicians have made appearances, including Grateful Dead frontman Bob Weir, Jackson Browne, and Canadian guitarist Colin Linden. During Wilco‘s set, Nancy Sinatra performed two crowd-thrilling songs, “Bang Bang” and “These Boots Are Made for Walking.”

As predicted, Dylan’s arrangements of classic ballads such as “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” and “Tangled Up in Blue” were roughhoused into loose, bluesy shuffles fit for a country music hall, and his high, unruly croon was laden with an antagonizing gravel. The young children in the audience will likely not remember tonight’s concert, but they will have an anecdote—a memory of attending a “historical” concert in their youth, but unable to process its levity and meaning for themselves. Dylan is a spectacle—something to be appreciated for what he stands for—but not something you have to stay the whole show for.

Dylan might have initially seemed distant, aloof, and irrelevant. And in the moment, Dylan hardly tried to correct that view. But he made sure to get the last word in by the end of the night.

You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home
Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

In his most lucid performance that evening, the thin man relished his final words. It was his chance to defy, to exist on his own terms and as a part of the greater destiny he believes he is serving—while he still can, before he can no longer.

Set List
Things Have Changed
Love Sick
High Water (For Charley Patton)
Soon After Midnight
Early Roman Kings
Tangled Up In Blue
Duquesne Whistle
She Belongs To Me
Beyond Here Lies Nothin’ – Together Through Life (2009)
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
Blind Willie McTell
Simple Twist Of Fate
Summer Days
The Weight
All Along The Watchtower

Encore
Ballad Of A Thin Man